Big Year 2017

Wednesday, 7 October 2015

September! New Rarities Month?

In 2015, September is making a credible
attempt to replace November as Rarity Month after putting up a number of
rarities and even a few mega-rarities.

The second day of the month set the
tone for things to come. I was finally able to see up-close and photograph a
bird, which I first saw flying high over St. Lucy, our most northern parish, in
the latter part of August. The bird was white, with black patches by its
eyes and flew like a tern. I was able to
get a couple poor quality photographs before it disappeared. I shared the
images with a few birders but we were unable to make a definitive
identification. I was about to give up on being able to ID this bird when
two local birders, Dr. Webster and Mr. R. Roach, discovered a Gull-billed
Tern, around the same area. There
was no doubt that this was the bird I saw earlier. Even though we
recorded this species here on the island in the last few years, in some
quarters it is still considered a rarity.

Three other birds were seen during
September, some may differ on their status as rarities. They were a Red Knots, a Grey Heron anda
Glossy Ibis. September was like the month for

Knots with
confirmed sightings of two in the eastern parish of St. Philip and unconfirmed
reports of a small group at a swamp in the parish of St. Lucy. I was able
to see and photograph one of the two in St. Philip. I saw a Glossy
Ibis while on the Highway the morning of September 8th.
The bird was not hard to identify as it flew towards me and directly over my
car. I noted the dark colour, decurved bill and the extended neck position
synonymous with its flight. The bird was next seen and photographed by R.
Roach on September 13th in the parish of St. Lucy. The Grey Heron
was an unexpected surprise. I was on my
way home from work one afternoon when I saw it in an irrigation pond in the
parish of St. George. This Eurasian heron
is becoming a regular visitor to our shores, this being the second consecutive
year it was recorded.

The parish of St. Lucy continues to
attract rarities with two Collard Plovers on September 2nd ,
a Fork-tailed Flycatcher, a lifer for me, on the 13th,
and the bird of the month (even though I did not get to see it), a
juvenile Purple Heron, our second for the year. The trend of
rarities

continued right into the last weekend of the month, with two more bird
sightings, one can even be considered a mega rarity. First, on Saturday 26th,
a quick stop at one of the irrigation ponds at Greenland, St. Andrew, turned up
a single female Ruddy Duck and on the following day a Striated
Heronwas
seen at the Mangrove Landfill in the parish of St. Thomas. That sighting represented the second record of
this species for the island. This bird
is a close relative to our Green Heron, locally known as a Gaulin, but
while the Green heron's plumage is mostly brown the Striated one is grey.

The month of September was outstanding,
can November measure up? Time will tell.